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RMS Lusitania
The RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner, holder of the Blue Riband, and briefly the world's largest passenger ship. She was launched by the Cunard Line in 1906, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade. On May 7th, 1915; she was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat, causing the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew. She had made a total of 202 trans-Atlantic crossings.1 It has a Luxury Suite, a Lounge, a Ballroom, a Library, Dining Rooms, Reception Room, Smoke Room, a French Restraunt, and a Main Staircase. All of the areas had much more luxury than RMS Titanic. Comparison with the Olympic-class Lusitania and Mauretania were smaller than the White Star Line's Olympic-Class vessels. Both vessels had been launched and had been in service for several years before the Olympicclass ships were ready for the North Atlantic. Although significantly faster than the Olympic class would be, the speed of Cunard's vessels was not sufficient to allow the line to run a weekly two-ship transatlantic service from each side of the Atlantic. A third ship was needed for a weekly service, and in response to White Star's announced plan to build the three Olympic class ships, Cunard ordered a third ship: the RMS Aquitania. Like the Olympic, Cunard's Aquitania had a lower service speed but was a larger and more luxurious vessel. This decision made the Olympic-class and the Mauretania-class ultimate rivals. The vessels of the Olympic-class also differed from the Lusitaniaand Mauretania in the way in which they were compartmentalized below the waterline. The White Star vessels were divided by transverse watertight bulkheads. While the Lusitania also had transverse bulkheads, it also had longitudinal bulkheads running along the ship on each side, between the boiler and engine rooms and the coal bunkers on the outside of the vessel. The British commission that had investigated the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 heard testimony on the flooding of coal bunkers lying outside longitudinal bulkheads. Being of considerable length, when flooded, these could increase the ship's list and "make the lowering of the boats on the other side impracticable" — and this was precisely what later happened with Lusitania. Furthermore, the ship's stability was insufficient for the bulkhead arrangement used: flooding of only three coal bunkers on one side could result in negative metacentric height. On the other hand, Titanic was given ample stability and sank with only a few degrees list, the design being such that there was very little risk of unequal flooding and possible capsize. Much like Titanic, the Lusitania did not carry enough lifeboats for all her passengers, officers and crew on board at the time of her maiden voyage (actually carrying four lifeboats fewer than the Titanic would carry in 1912). This was a common practice for large passenger ships at the time since the belief was that in busy shipping lanes help would always be nearby and the few boats available would be adequate to ferry all aboard to rescue ships before a sinking. Interestingly after the Titanic sank, Lusitania and Mauretania would only be equipped with an additional six more clinker-built wooden boats under davits, making for a total of 22 boats rigged in davits. The rest of their lifeboat accommodations were supplemented with 26 collapsible lifeboats, 18 stored directly beneath the regular lifeboats and eight on the after deck. The collapsibles were built with hollow wooden bottoms and canvas sides, and needed assembly in the event they had to be used. It was not enough for her full capacity of 2950 but for the amount of 1962 souls on board during her trip it was sufficient. This contrasted with the Olympic and the Britannic which received 64 boats, a full complement of lifeboats all rigged under davits. This difference, however, was not a major contributor to the high loss of life involved with the Lusitania's sinking, because even though there was not sufficient time to assemble collapsible boats or life-rafts, the ship's severe listing made it impossible for lifeboats on the port (left hand side when facing toward the bow) side of the vessel to be lowered, and the rapidity of the sinking did not allow the remaining lifeboats that could be directly lowered (as these were rigged under davits) to be filled and launched with passengers. When Britannic, working as a hospital ship during World War I, sank in 1916 after hitting a mine in the Kea channel the already davited boats were swiftly lowered saving nearly all on board, but the ship took nearly three times as long to sink as Lusitania and thus the crew had more time to evacuate passengers. Sinking On May 7th, 1915 the Lusitania was nearing the end of her 202nd crossing, bound for Liverpool from New York, and was scheduled to dock at the Prince's Landing Stage later that afternoon. Aboard her were 1,266 passengers and a crew of 696, which combined totaled to 1,962 people. She was running parallel to the south coast of Ireland, and was roughly 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale when the liner crossed in front of U-20 at 14:10. Because of the liner's great speed, some believe the intersection of the German U-boat and the liner to be coincidence, as U-20 could hardly have caught the fast vessel otherwise. Schwieger, the commanding officer of the U-boat, gave the order to fire one torpedo, which struck Lusitania on the starboard bow, just beneath the wheelhouse. Moments later, a second explosion erupted from within Lusitania's hull where the torpedo had struck, and the ship began to founder in a much more rapid procession, with a prominent list to starboard. Almost immediately, the crew scrambled to launch the lifeboats but the conditions of the sinking made their usage extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible due to the ship's severe list. In all, only six out of 48 lifeboats were launched successfully, with several more overturning and breaking apart. Eighteen minutes after the torpedo struck, the bow struck the seabed while the stern was still above the surface, and finally it slid beneath the waves. When the RMS Lusitania left New York City for Liverpool on what would be her final voyage on May 1st, 1915; submarine warfare was intensifying in the Atlantic. Germany had declared the seas around the United Kingdom a war zone, and the German embassy in the United States had placed a newspaper advertisement warning people of the dangers of sailing on the Lusitania. On the afternoon of May 7th, Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-Boat, 11 miles (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland and inside the declared "zone of war". A second internal explosion sent her to the bottom of the ocean in 18 minutes. In firing on a non-military ship without warning, the Germans had breached the international laws known as the Cruiser Rules. Although the Germans had reasons for treating Lusitania as a naval vessel, including the fact that the ship was carrying war munitions and that the British had been breaching the Cruiser Rules, the sinking caused a storm of protest in the United States, as 128 Americans were among the dead. The ship's sinking provided Britain with a propaganda opportunity, which helped shift public opinion in the United States against Germany and influenced America's eventual declaration of war two years later, in 1917.Category:Cunard Line Category:Ocean-liner Category:Ships